VisiCalc introduced for the Apple II in 1979
Lotus-123 introduced for the IBM PC in 1983
Microsoft Excel introduced for Windows in 1987
Read the uploaded case (Valuing Walmart 2010). Ignore the valuation method described in the case. Instead, generate pro forma statements and perform a two-stage DCF analysis.
Document your assumptions and your reasons for them. Generate an Excel workbook and a Word doc. Format the Excel worksheets nicely.
How did teaching and learning change? Are there lessons for today?
Teaching how to do finance in spreadsheets is a main goal.
✓ AI is used in business
✓ AI is useful for teaching/tutoring
✗ AI can automatically do many things we were teaching before
AI is more like calculators than spreadsheets. We worry that students won’t learn skills that they need.
Like primary schools and arithmetic, we will need to have practice and assessments in which AI is not allowed
MIT/Media Labs State of AI in Business 2025:
Workers from over 90% of the companies we surveyed reported regular use of personal AI tools for work tasks. In fact, almost every single person used an LLM in some form for their work.
✓ Example of what AI can do today
✓ Historical analogues
A course on AI
Updating existing courses to use AI
Deep dive into Claude Code
In March 2025, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and managing partner Jared Friedman stated that
for roughly a quarter of the startups in their Winter 2025 cohort, 95% of the codebase was written by AI.
A system prompt is text that is sent to the LLM along with each user prompt.
It contains information and instructions for the LLM.
From Anthropic:
Through data providers, Claude has real-time access to comprehensive financial information:
We’ve been developing capabilities powered by Claude since 2023 within AIA Labs.
Claude powered the first versions of our Investment Analyst Assistant, which streamlined our analysts’ workflow by generating Python code, creating data visualizations, and iterating through complex financial analysis tasks with the precision of a junior analyst.
Fortune, 9-14-2025:
PromptQL, an enterprise AI platform created by San Francisco-based developer tooling company Hasura, is doling out $900-per-hour wages to its engineers tasked with building and deploying AI agents to analyze internal company data using large language models (LLMs).
Tanmai Gopal, PromptQL’s cofounder and CEO, said “MBA types … are very strategic thinkers, and they’re smart people, but they don’t have an intuition for what AI can do.”
May require chatting at this stage to clarify user’s request
Response could be error message
If so, agent should send to LLM for new SQL code
✓ Example of what AI can do today
✓ Historical analogues
✓ A course on AI
Updating existing courses to use AI
Deep dive into Claude Code
As AI models begin to handle underwriting, compliance, and asset allocation, the traditional architecture of financial work is undergoing a fundamental shift.
As job descriptions evolve, so does the definition of financial talent. Excel is no longer a differentiator. Python is fast becoming the new Excel.
But technical skills alone will not cut it. The most in demand profiles today are those that speak both AI and finance, and can move between legal, operational, and data contexts without losing the plot.
Ethan Mollick, Wharton, “Good Enough Prompting:”
Treat AI like an infinitely patient new coworker … As it is a coworker, you want to work with it, not just give it orders, and you also want to learn out what it is good or bad at … Working with AI is a dialogue, not an order.
✓ Example of what AI can do today
✓ Historical analogues
✓ A course on AI
✓ Updating existing courses to use AI
Create a LaTeX doc in the article style with Hello World as the title. Compile to pdf.
QUESTIONS?